


The Imbalance

by DesertSnowQueen



Series: Crash AU [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Day 9, F/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:01:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21754933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertSnowQueen/pseuds/DesertSnowQueen
Summary: Day 9! It's late but it's also over 2000 words so I don't feel too bad.Enjoy!
Relationships: Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Damian Wayne
Series: Crash AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1568713
Comments: 17
Kudos: 493
Collections: Daminette December 2019





	The Imbalance

**Author's Note:**

> Day 9! It's late but it's also over 2000 words so I don't feel too bad.
> 
> Enjoy!

_The Ladybug and the Black Cat are two halves of a whole._

_The embodiment of creation and destruction, good luck and bad._

_When they are together, they create a balance._

_But when they are separated, the resulting imbalance will cause their respective natures to destroy them._

~*~*~*~

Damian had been on this mission with the Teen Titans for too goddamn long. It wasn’t the first time he’d been away from home on a long mission...on the contrary, he had gone on much longer operations before. 

But before he didn’t have an angel waiting for him at home.

Being away from her for so long was starting to make him anxious. It was like there was an itch he just couldn’t scratch no matter what he tried. He became irritable, snapping at his teammates over the smallest of things. He was more ruthless during fights. Though no one said it out loud, the worried looks they shared spoke volumes.

_It’s like when he first got out of the League…_

~*~*~*~

Marinette was stressed.

Damian was away on a mission, and she hadn’t seen or even spoken to him in more than a month. His brothers assured her that he was okay, but that did nothing to quell the nervous energy she was feeling. So she threw herself into her designing and baking to distract herself.

Once she started trying to distract herself, it was like she had tapped into a waterfall of inspiration. Designs flowed from her pen and she quickly filled page after page in her sketchbook. Recipes her parents taught her came to mind, and she baked whatever she had the right ingredients for. When making established recipes bored her, she experimented with creating new ones, just like her Maman and Papa did in the bakery. And when she got tired of that, she went and got new fabrics to bring some of her new designs to life.

She didn’t sleep much, especially since Damian left. She still didn’t feel safe enough to sleep on her own, even though Hawkmoth had already been defeated. But the longer Damian was gone, the more she found that her mind was full of ideas and inspiration, and she wouldn’t have been able to sleep until she got her ideas out of her head.

It was like she couldn’t stop.

~*~*~*~

_Three centuries earlier, the League of Assassins finally tracked down a former Ladybug and Black Cat duo. They had long since given up their Miraculouses in an attempt to lead a normal life, but Ra’s Al Ghul and his followers knew they would have information on where to find the Miracle Box. He ordered the duo’s capture, and demanded they be kept in separate League bases instead of being brought directly to the main compound together. He knew of their importance to each other, and he hoped the promise of reuniting them would encourage them to answer their questions._

_Oh, how wrong he was._

_The Ladybug was honorable. She kept her secrets, no matter how they tortured her. No matter how they promised to torture her other half. No matter how many times they promised salvation for her compliance, or death for her disobedience._

_In the end, they were not the ones who killed her. She died of exhaustion. She had spent all of her waking hours drawing in her cell, sometimes with the dirt, sometimes with a small stone, and sometimes with her own blood. She drew and drew and drew and then she collapsed and never opened her eyes again._

_The Black Cat was volatile. He fought his captors tooth and nail, killing every guard that got too close without proper protections. He cursed and spat and fought and ripped fabrics and damaged everything within reach, but he gave them no information. The night his Ladybug died, he broke free of his cell and destroyed the base in a blind rage. He killed almost every occupant on the base before his nature consumed him, and he died mere hours after she did._

_Contrary to their name, the League of Assassins did not kill the former Miraculous holders. They were not so foolish as to kill them without getting the information they wanted._

_Once Ra’s Al Ghul got over his fury at losing their best lead to the Miracle Box in more than a century, he assigned a team of his men to investigate what caused their deaths._

_What the team discovered was surprising. They called it the Imbalance. It was well known by all who knew the legends of the Miraculouses that the Ladybug and Black Cat were responsible for maintaining the balance of the universe. They could be combined to grant any wish, so long as a price was paid to restore that balance. It was previously believed that a true Ladybug and Black Cat could merely exist in the world at the same time, and they would create the balance without even trying. The study done by the League, however, proved otherwise. A true Ladybug and Black Cat could not be separated for more than a few weeks before the Imbalance took hold and they began to crash. If they were reunited in time, the League theorized that the crashing would stop, and the balance would be restored. But if they were kept apart, the crash would kill them both._

_Their bond, their separation, their imbalance killed them. They were essentially soulmates, and when one died, the other was quick to follow._

~*~*~*~

Damian’s teammates were worried about him. The longer the mission went on, the less he spoke to anyone. When he did speak, he was harsh. If he was spoken to when he didn’t want to be, he would growl or hiss at whoever disturbed him.

He started breaking things. Glasses, plates, lanterns, supplies...whatever he could get his hands on. As time went on, he would attack anyone who came too close for seemingly no reason. 

Plagg stayed hidden, since none of Damian’s teammates knew he had the ring, but he was worried for his kitten and Tikki’s bug. He knew exactly what was happening to them, and the fact that there was nothing he could do gnawed at him. They needed to restore the balance, and they needed to do it soon.

By the time the team finally finished their mission, Jon was the only one who would go near Damian. He took on the responsibility of making sure his best friend got home okay.

~*~*~*~

Jason, Tim, and Dick were all worried about Marinette. She was drinking more coffee than even Tim was, and she had seemingly been awake for longer than he had ever gone. They couldn’t remember the last time any of them saw her rest. The only thing she did anymore was draw and bake and design. Jason was reminded of an old legend from his time in the League of Assassins after his resurrection, but that was impossible. They all joked about Marinette and Damian being soulmates, but there was no way they actually were...right?

Tikki was debating revealing herself to Damian’s brothers. Her Ladybug needed her Black Cat if they wanted to survive, and Tikki knew his family would be able to call him home in time. The only thing that stopped her was Marinette’s insistence that they not know about the Miraculouses. Fu’s insistence on secrecy while he was training her left a lasting impact on the girl, and as a result she was hesitant to trust anyone who didn’t have a Miraculous. Currently, that meant herself and Damian. Still, Tikki decided that if things got any worse, she would force the Waynes to bring Damian home. 

She was doing her best to shoulder the worst of the imbalance and knew Plagg was doing the same, but that would only tide them over for so long.

In the end, it was Jason that approached her. They were all worried, but Jason was the only one who thought he knew what was going on so he decided he’d be the one to ask. He found her in the kitchen, looking pale and smaller than usual, with dark shadows under her eyes.

“Marinette? Can I ask you an odd question?” he asked hesitantly. Marinette nodded but didn’t look up from the cookie dough she was mixing, despite being surrounded by baked goods and sweets. “Are you a Ladybug?”

She froze for a full thirty seconds. She glanced up at him, and he saw a flash of panic in her eyes before her entire demeanor became resigned and she nodded. She went back to her cookie dough.

“Damian is your Black Cat, isn’t he?” Another nod. 

“We’ve been separated for too long…” she whispered. Jason cursed under his breath.

“You’re crashing.” It wasn’t a question, but Marinette nodded again anyway. When she looked back up at him, she had tears in her eyes.

“I don’t want to die, Jay...and I don’t want Dami to die either…”

“It’ll be okay, Pixie Pop...just trust me,” Jason said. Marinette wiped her eyes and started putting the cookie dough on the tray to pop in the oven.

The cookies had just gone in and Marinette had switched back to sketching when Dick and Tim ran in, phone in hand.

“Jon is bringing Damian home. The mission just ended. But there’s a problem…” Dick said anxiously. “Jon said Damian’s been reverting...he’s acting like he just got out of the League. He’s been destroying everything in sight.”

“Tell Jon to get Damian here immediately. Tell him Mari needs him,” Jason said, glancing back at the girl they all considered a little sister. Dick nodded and relayed the message.

~*~*~*~

It took another hour for Jon to get Damian home. Marinette had almost used every page in the sketchbook she bought the week before and had made her special hot chocolate before he got home. When Jon finally dragged him inside the door, he was tied up and practically feral. Dick and Tim both took a step back.

“What the hell happened?” Dick asked. Jon shrugged and tossed Damian onto the couch.

“He attacked me when I mentioned Mari, so I had to restrain him to get him here,” Jon said, trying his best to ignore Damian’s hissing. “He’s clearly not happy about it.”

“Carefully get him untied. I’ll go get her,” Jason said, running to the kitchen. Jon, Dick, and Tim all shared a nervous look as Damian kept growling and hissing at them.

“Not it!” Dick and Jon yelled in unison. Tim glared at them.

“I hate you both,” Tim grumbled. He hesitantly walked over to Damian and started untying him. Jason carried a barely conscious Marinette into the living room just as Tim finally got the last knot undone. Damian jumped off the couch, fully ready to attack them until he saw his Ladybug cradled in Jason’s arms. 

Jason slowly set Mari down on the couch then backed away, nudging the others to back up with him. Jon was the most confused of all of them. He didn’t understand why they were treating Damian like a wild animal. At least Dick and Tim had gotten a debrief from Jason and understood how serious the situation was.

Their youngest brother and soon-to-be little sister nearly died. And Damian could have taken out all of the Titans with him.

Damian eyed them warily for a few minutes. No one moved...they hardly even breathed in case it set him off. But Damian had more important things to worry about. He scooped up his beloved Ladybug and ran off, carrying her up to his bedroom where he could protect her more easily. They heard the door shut, and Jason sighed in relief.

“We’ll have to keep an eye on them still. I doubt either of them have slept or eaten much of anything in days...so we’ll need to make sure they do that while the imbalance sorts itself out, but they should be fine now that they’re back together,” Jason said. The others nodded, and they spent the next few hours explaining exactly what happened to Jon.

When they’d told him everything they knew, they quietly went up to check on Damian and Marinette, only to find both teens fast asleep. Alfred left a tray of food in the room for when they woke up, and the house collectively decided to leave them be.

**Author's Note:**

> This was something I've been toying with for a little while, and I could have done something more fluffy but I wanted to get this idea out there and the soulmates prompt felt like as good a time as any. I hope y'all enjoyed!
> 
> I think the Fluff prompt for Day 10 (which I haven't written yet lol) is going to be the aftermath of this as the balance sorts itself out. Let me know if y'all would be down for that or not.


End file.
